FOREST PARK | What was a dream for Chicago native Al Maag and fellow 16-inch no gloves softball enthusiasts 20 years ago became a dream come true last Saturday.

The 16-inch Softball Hall of Fame museum, which honors hundreds of the game’s players (men and women), managers, umpires, organizers and teams, celebrated its grand opening with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by 2013 Hall of Fame inductees, and hundreds of fans and dignitaries, including Forest Park Mayor Anthony Calderone, State Sen. Kimberly Lightford and State Rep. Chris Welch.

It took nearly two years to build the Hall of Fame, located just off the corner of Des Plaines Avenue and Harrison Street. The building stands next to Inductee Park, where photos and caricatures of each inductee are located. The Hall of Fame also is just west of the three Park District of Forest Park softball fields that will host the 46th annual No Glove Nationals tournament. The tourney gets under way Thursday and concludes Sunday.

“It’s a great week for softball,” said Ron Kubicki, president of the Hall of Fame Board of Directors who’s a Hall of Famer himself and managed two national championship teams. “I walked in today and it actually exceeds my expectations. When people come in here, I think they’re going to be in awe.”

The Hall of Fame is chock-full of artifacts, memorabilia and interactive video and audio displays that tell the story of the history of 16-inch no-gloves softball—a sport that was invented in Chicago in the late 1880s.

Maag, one of the Hall of Fame’s founders who is retired and lives in Scottsdale, Ariz., was literally putting the finishing touches on the hall, centering a plaque on a wall near the entrance an hour before the building officially opened to the public.

Then an art director for the defunct Windy City Magazine in the 1970s, Maag—himself a softball player back in the day—got interested in the game’s history after reading accounts written by the magazine’s publisher. After that, Maag and some friends decided to produce a documentary about 16-inch softball which ended up being hosted by legendary Chicago Cubs play-by-play announcer Jack Brickhouse.

“We thought we could do it in a couple of weeks, and then we started meeting more and more people with wonderful stories,” said Maag, also a Hall of Fame inductee. “It ended up being a lot of fun.

“Me and my friends, we became historians all of a sudden. Now we started meeting more people who had the same feelings we had about the game. And it became pretty apparent that they’d like to have a Hall of Fame. Now it became, ‘Maybe we should do this.’ ”

Inductee Park opened in 2009, and construction of the building commenced in 2012 as more funds were raised. Companies such as Molex, Waste Management, Inc., MB Financial Bank, March Manufacturing of Glenview and Topps Construction of Chicago are among the Hall of Fame’s chief sponsors. More than half of the estimated $500,000 needed to cover the costs of funding the hall has already been raised, but Maag is actively seeking more donations.

Since the Hall of Fame is now open, Maag said, “I hope people don’t say, ‘Well, we’re done now (with fundraising).’ That’s not the case. “We’ve gotten some support (from large companies in the Chicago area), but I expected a beer company, I expected some other Chicago brands (to support the hall). I thought we’d have this paid for by now, and we have some work to do.”

March Manufacturing CEO Fritz Zimmermann, a 1999 inductee, still pitches for two teams—The Doctors and his own March Manufacturing club—in 50-and-older leagues in Berwyn and Cicero. His company sponsors four teams. “It’s the friendships and the camaraderie you make,” said Zimmermann, whose company manufactures pumps. “And the love of the game. It never goes away. “And that’s basically why this building is here. It brings everybody back and I’m hoping that the younger generation will continue to keep coming back to see this.”

One of Zimmermann’s teammates in the 50-and-over league is Ray Topps, owner and operator of Topps Construction who pitches and catches.“I’ve told people in the past, ‘To me, softball players were like a college fraternity,’ ” Topps said. “The game is not exclusive to Chicago, but for the most part, the Chicagoland area is where it’s really played.

“If you’ve played this game, you know guys from every team—the best players down to the church leagues. You know everybody and everybody knows you. That’s what makes it unique and also fun.”

Topps’ company constructed the building, so Topps routinely witnessed everything coming together. “This building was done in phases financially,” he explained. “We knew there was a lot of fundraising done. Initially, we did have enough (funds) to get the shell completed, and that’s what we did. We got it to the stage where we had the outside completed, and then we just waited for additional funding to move to the inside.

“I’m in the business, I’ve been doing it forever, but I’ve been playing softball for 40 years, so you know what? It’s fun. I love what I do for a living. The extra special involvement was the fact that I’m in the Hall of Fame; I enjoy doing this kind of stuff. Every day was fun coming here.”

Kubicki also wanted to thank the village of Forest Park and the Park District for helping the Hall of Fame become reality. “We partnered up with the Forest Park Park District and the village of Forest Park,” he said. “I cannot say enough about that community. They are incredible, fantastic people to work with; they’ve bent over backwards for us.”